The will of the patient is of growing importance in the medical encounter. People are increasingly addressed as accountable decision takers, which produces questions and problems with regard to medical, legal, ethical, political and practical aspects. This is particularly true for so called end-of-life-decisions. Between the years 2003 and 2009 a vivid public debate and multiple political efforts concerning the regulation of end-of-life-decisions have taken place in Germany. At the center...
by VON DER HAGEN Alma

OECD’s PISA is a knowledge-based and knowledge-generating device that combines technical and social components, takes part in establishing regulations for the coordination and control of public action in education, operates several core categories of schooling, and to a certain extent rewrites the educational model for contemporary societies.
by CARVALHO Luis Miguel

In Portugal, the knowledge mobilized and registered in the discussions over school autonomy and management is at the origin of one of the main conflicts amongst the various actors of public-policy making. This is the result of a lack of common grounds between the existing “supply” in the academic world of education sciences, as part of the educational administration area, and the “demand” by the personnel of the Ministry of Education for “useful” knowledge to guide the policy-making...
by BARROSO João

Several forms of knowledge were taken into account by policy and administration actors during the introduction of sex education within schools in Portugal (mid-nineties-2007). From the assemblage of different kinds of knowledge emerges another one providing methodological guidance to practices that create consensus on ’what works’.
by CARVALHO Luis Miguel

The SDS policy domain gained shape after 2002, yet the conflict of knowledge and knowledge holders roots in scientific debates that started prior the policy. Conflicts between scientific paradigms (1) stem from epistemological differences, conflicts between knowledge forms (2) escalated through the policy process, and some of these conflicts (3) were also rephrased in the public debates. Meanwhile, holders of various disciplinary knowledges hardly compatible in the scientific domain, to...
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

Since health reform has an accentuated significance in the Hungarian political context ever since 1988 the relation of the different actors to the reform thinking and to each other is not independent from their positioning in the post-communist setting. Thus, historical path dependency is an influential aspect in the process. Both knowledge production and appropriation related to the health reform is steeped in this massive political self-definitional...
by DAVID Bea ,
EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

Transversal dialog is a “hybrid expertise –generating system”: this instrument is especially designed in a way that public authorities and mental healthcare providers get a hybrid expertise (made up of empirical and scientific knowledge) about care networks and circuits. In this paper, we describe the whole system of the transversal dialog, before of explaining the conflicts resulting from the meeting between different types of knowledge producers (field actors, users, scientific experts and...
by THUNUS Sophie

This paper concentrates on the interaction of global and foreign ideas and domestic policies. More specifically, this paper discusses the activity of supranational, transnational and non-governmental actors involved in developing the discourse of equity and desegregation after 2010.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

1. The political influence of the European Union
In the nineties, Hungary was repeatedly warmed by international organizations such as the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI, 2000/5., Par. 29.) and the UN Committee on the elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD, 2002, Par. 382.) for the educational discrimination of the Roma. Yet the European accession was exploited in communicative terms but did not mean a real pressure factor.
“Hungary joined the EU in 2004....
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

The public action process is not linear and involves several actors and “rationales”, all throughout the political decision-making process. Likewise, the knowledge inserted in public action varies from moment to moment and stems from the characteristics of the policy process itself.
by BARROSO João

Knowledge-Policy constellations are either distinct technologies of governance, or, more simply, highly observable crystallized forms of regular interaction that lead to the incorporation of specific SEN related knowledges into the public action.
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

Our research results imply that instead of asking how policy-makers influence the conditions of knowledge production, it seems more revealing to discuss the strategies of social scientists and policy-makers to cooperate and share knowledge in a co-constructive process. We argue that this relationship cannot be described with the traditional commander-supplier knowledge economy order, but rather as co-dependence in which the negotiating partners collectively shape the content of the contract...
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

In order to understand the DRG system in use, we conducted a fieldwork in a teaching hospital in Budapest. The fieldwork took place in the spring of 2010 at the surgery clinic of a medical university.
by FERNEZELYI Bori,
KOLTAI Júlia,
LEVENDEL Sára

How can knowledge generated by the PISA survey be converted into usable information for policy-makers? In this excerpt, we analyze how the OECD developed PISA as a credible and useful tool for the exercise of government power and/or government scrutiny.
by CARVALHO Luis Miguel

Compared to other education policies it is not an exaggeration to say that both the integration of Severely Socially Disadvantaged Students and Roma integration Public Action have triggered a broad and evolving public debate. This public action has resulted to be one of the most contested and media influenced education policies of the last decade in Hungary. In written media and telecommunications the main lines of debate has been structured along ideological-political borders; namely along...
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

Hungary has been a member of WHO since it was established on 7 April 1948 with an intermission between 1949–1954, when all countries of the “Eastern Bloc” withdrew from their membership following the order of the Soviet Union. Since 1954 there has been a progressive cooperation between Hungary and WHO, becoming quite intense from the 1960s. Moreover, three of the European Regional Committee’s presidents were Hungarian (1969, 1988 and...
by FERNEZELYI Bori

The report presents and discusses the Norwegian Mental Health field in three parts: The first part offers a diachronic overview over major developments in the field. The next part describes the structure, the prevailing knowledge and important actors, and the third part discusses some aspects of mental health policy developments that seem important for the relationship between knowledge and politics in the mental health field in...
by FEIRING Marte,
HELGESEN Marit,
RAMSDAL Helge,
VOLD HANSEN Gunnar

Mental Health Declaration and Action Plan had regulatory effects on the national level, since an issue that had formerly been absent from the national agenda has been brought up, partly as a result of the formal collaboration between WHO and Hungary, but mainly as a result of self-regulation, i.e. the European/international ‘language’ of mental health policy was adopted partly as a way of conformity, partly as a rational step in the hope of funding...
by FERNEZELYI Bori

This report focuses on the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe. It examines its dimensions, history, relationships and the knowledge that it draws on and creates in its work. As a specific focal point for this exploration we examine knowledge in relation to the development of a Ministerial Conference which took place in Helsinki in January 2005 which launched WHO Europe’s Mental Health Declaration and Action Plan for...
by FREEMAN Richard,
SMITH-MERRY Jennifer,
STURDY Steve

Since the eighties, the Belgian mental health sector has faced several reforms. Still dominated by the hospital facilities, as the principal device for the treatment of mental diseases, this sector has initiated a long process of reform towards the development of a system of collaborative interprofessional networks aimed at the resocialization of the chronic patients. Since the beginning of the century, the World Health Organization (WHO) has become more and more active on the issue of...
by CERFONTAINE Gaëtan,
SCHOENAERS Frédéric,
VRANCKEN Didier

This excerpt investigates how the policy paradigm shift took place in the conceptualization and targeting of measures under discussion within the Hungarian education policy space.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

Purpose:
This report focuses on the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe. It examines its dimensions, history, relationships and the knowledge that it draws on and creates in its work. As a specific focal point for this exploration we examine knowledge in relation to the development of a Ministerial Conference which took place in Helsinki in January 2005 which launched WHO Europe’s Mental Health Declaration and Action Plan for Europe.
The research is part of the...
by FREEMAN Richard,
SMITH-MERRY Jennifer,
STURDY Steve

How has the OECD’s comparative inquiry on student performances (PISA) been constructed (and evolved over time, 1997-2007)? What kind of relationships has it established between knowledge and policy? In order to answer these questions we’ve studied PISA as an entity of complex multiple activities through which diverse social actors are engaged in the production, dissemination and use of ‘knowledge for...
by CARVALHO Luis Miguel

Some of our findings indicate that a shift from government to governance takes place, yet traditional bureaucratic practices of regulation coexist and are complemented by post-bureaucratic policy instruments that follow the logic of the accountability regime.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

The report analyses “Restructuring of mental health service provision” with a main focus on the formation and implementation of the Mental Health Action Plan 1998 - 2008. “Restructuring of mental health services” in our context relates to the formal organization designs that are set up (evolved/decided) at three levels of government: the national, specialist services and municipal services. Formal restructuring involves processes that intend to reorganize existing service units and design new...
by RAMSDAL Helge

Under reconstruction for about the last thirty years, mental health in Belgium started in the second half of the years 2000 a new reconversion phase. Aiming at de-institutionalizing the existing institutions by promoting network practices, the upcoming reform had to be preceded by an ambitious experimentation phase to test the new care model. This experimental policy, which was often called « therapeutic projects in mental health», was actually made of two large aspects. On the one hand,...
by CERFONTAINE Gaëtan

The report on the first public action of orientation 2 provides the analysis of Community Action Programme (CA) implemented in Romania between 2003- 2009. The report discusses the knowledge-policy relation, the use of knowledge in the process of decision-making, implementation and evaluation in the case of CA. Considering the course and methodology of the research a complex process took place. Interviews were conducted, document, event and website analysis was done, media materials and CA...
by BIRÓ Zoltán A.,
FEJES Ildiko,
KISS Adel

Since the focus in orientation 3 was put on regulatory instruments, our team conducted research on the diffusion and use of PISA in the romanian education. Central research questions were put on the knowledge producing and knowledge circulating role of this instrument, the team had tried to explore - next to the context of PISA - the process of implementation, the information transmited by the PISA results and the use of these results, the characteristics of dissemination and social...
by BODO Juliánna,
FEJES Ildiko,
KISS Adel,
KOSA Istvan,
ROSTAS Zoltan

This excerpt is retrieved from a report on the public action relative to the introduction of sex education in schools in Portugal in the period between 1984 (date of the first decree approved by the Parliament on the matter – Law 3/84) and 2009 (date of the last decree passed by Parliament on the matter – Law 60/2009). The text gives an interpretative analysis on two main knowledge-policy configurations identified along the making of school sexual education policies in Portugal: «committees...
by BARROSO João,
CARVALHO Luis Miguel

The report written in the frame of orientation 1 provides an analysis on knowledge and policy in national context. It seeks to map the actors of the romanian education, the knowledge potentially available for policy makers, decision makers within education, to trace the relationship between those who hold and produce knowledge and those who use knowledge in policy decisions. In order to answer the research-questions interviews were conducted within politicians, decision makers, experts and...
by KOSA Istvan

In this article we shall examine the connections and disconnections between WHO's Mental Health Declaration & Action Plan and the Hungarian National Programme for Mental Health (NPMH).
by FERNEZELYI Bori

Public policies are conceived as Programs of action promoted by the public authorities (Meny and Thoenig, 1989) focused on the identification and solution of collective problems, including not only the production of guidelines for action (values, goals, norms) but also the management of the collective action needed to actually implement those guidelines.
However, public authorities (politicians and upper level civil servants) are not the only relevant actors in policy making. The growing...
by AFONSO Natercio

The point of targeting was the most interesting one in the constellations where knowledge and policy unite. One of the main functions of Education systems is selection – and especially the Bavarian school systems tends to selecting.
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

The paradigm shift can be interpreted as the introduction of novel policy concerns (de-segregation and inclusion) inspired by novel experts, instead of state bureaucratic regulation modes, along with the emergence of conflicting disciplinary knowledges.
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

The role of local actors in the decision making process is mainly confined to the implementation phase of the public action. But the role of local actors must not be underestimated in other stages of the public action as they are a source of knowledge themselves when it comes to implementation problems as well as structural and economic needs on the “ground.” Local actors have proven that they can transmit scientific and expert knowledge to decision makers and can play a needed role as...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

The broad term of local knowledge can result in diverse meanings. In what follows we will discuss (a) knowledge as a tool for creating local policies by local public officials such as local decision-makers and members of the city administration; (b) the knowledge of street-level practitioners; and (c) the knowledge of laymen users of education services.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

In an era of post-bureaucratic regulation, transnationalisation and evidence-based policies, the appeal for change in any policy domain is always an appeal for research and expertise (both national and international). Knowledge and cognitive authority legitimize public policies. ―Evidence‖ is often lacking, though.
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

The relationship between Norway and WHO with respect to mental health is embedded in a long tradition of Norwegian support of the organization. Generally, the indication is that Norway is giving WHO high priority, reflected in offering it extensive financial support and expertise. However, in mental health this relationship seems far more complex and ambiguous than would be expected on the basis of this tradition, for cultural and knowledge-related as well as structural issues. One might...
by FEIRING Marte,
HELGESEN Marit,
RAMSDAL Helge,
VOLD HANSEN Gunnar

The recomposition of the techno-structure within the Portuguese Ministry of Education affects the organization of different services, the profile of their lead-ers, the type of knowledge that is produced and the means by which it is circu-lated.
by BARROSO João

The abstract of the Orientation 2/2 report from the Hungarian education team (Neumann et al. 2010) discussed the relations between knowledge and policy throughout the fabrication of the integrated education public action in Hungary. We present herein a short outline of the report.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

The most popular international instrument of the Educational field, PISA, did not affect the SEN-field (directly): "In the PISA survey the sample‘s margin of error is 5 % and since the rate of SEN children is usually below 5 %, in most of the countries these children were not included in the analysis. It is especially true for countries where these children go to segregated schools or special classes".
But there is a series of SEN-specific international institutions and instruments. The...
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

The different roles and forms of expert intervention in the policy-making process tend to structure the relationship between knowledge and policy, (i.e. what type of knowledge is involved and how it is produced, received and disseminated).
by BARROSO João

Our analysis (Bajomi et al., 2007) provides a general overview of the institutionalized patterns of knowledge-policy relationships in the Hungarian education area, including a summary of findings for the research conducted between February 2007 and November 2007.
In this research phase, the main actors and institutions of the Hungarian education area were described and analyzed in terms of the knowledge transfer mechanisms that connect them. Subsequently, we carried out a social and...
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

The case under consideration illustrates the growing role of knowledge as an instrument of regulation in educational policy, under the on-going trend to the development of new governance strategies based on the “post-bureaucratic” mode of regulation.
by AFONSO Natercio,
COSTA Estela

The public action under consideration is the decentralization of the pre-university education system, in that the number and role of the actors is very varied. This section discusses the role of international actors in the public action.
by KISS Adel

Public coverage of the Last Desk Program can be considered as limited (as compared to parallel government programs); but the contrary could also be true: the issue (of the Roma unduly diagnosed as mentally retarded) had got quite a big publicity.
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

The decline in bureaucratic-professional regulation alters the position of the trade unions in the policy-making process and tends to increase the nebulousness of the relevant knowledge that should serve as the matrix for trade union activity.
by BARROSO João

How do policy makers tackle situations when they realize that their knowledge is insufficient for planning policies? And, what exactly are these gaps in knowledge? This section looks at the making of the Hungarian integrated education policy and attempts to answer these questions.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

A lack of public debate, lack of listening to the voice of local actors is the most commonly articulated criticism to the events of the PA, most decisions were made top-down, with very little influence by local actors, especially at the beginning of the program.
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

This is the executive summary of our research report. The Report focuses on how measurement and evaluation gradually became important issues on the Hungarian educational policy agenda. It summarizes the findings of the research conducted between September 2007 and July 2009.
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter,
VIDA Júlia

This report (Szabó et al. 2010) examines the Hungarian in-service teacher training system as a knowledge-based regulatory tool. The main investigational questions were the following: What was the interest, worth and view of the actors who have established the teacher-training system as an instrument? Which type of knowledge appeared during the making process of the instrument? How do the national central government and EU’s expectations...
by BAJOMI Iván,
BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

There are actors and innovators, who apply the bricolage concept when it comes to change. They transport the knowledge contents, because knowledge cannot flow freely, it needs a transporting agent. These innovators initiate institutional recombination through knowledge transportation.
by VON DER HAGEN Alma

The analysis of the media underlines that it is firstly moral arguments - moral knowledge - which are the best transportable for the media. It is also clearly identifiable which aspects the media pick up out of press releases of parties and of research institutes: mostly they are arguments with some educating or enlightening components.
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

Yet, a sudden surge of political activity in that field really started in the late 1990´s, when media attention was being directed to several cases of “misbehaviour” committed by teachers and principals integrating disabled children and, thus, defying the laws in force at that time: “[..] a child, a mentally disabled child, had been taken out of the [regular] school, the state’s supervisory school authority did this, and put the child in a school for disabled children, although all the people...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

The heterogeneity of interests reported to us by CSU-politicians, and the consequent maintaining of the existing educational possibilities in Bavaria with only the added option of integrative schooling, could be conveniently combined in the CSU´s decision-making process with the second crucial knowledge element we identified: the present institutional situation, as we already mentioned above. It is evident that a system of separated schools for healthy children on the one hand and all kinds...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

Scientific advice is a source of legitimisation in the political field. But as such, it nourishes the naive expectation of a hand-in-hand task-sharing between science and policy.
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

The objective of the public action studied by the Hungarian health team was to reduce the number of students with special educational needs [SEN] and to fight the over representation of ethnic Roma and lower class in segregated educational settings (special schools and classes).
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

The policy instrument under consideration is the external evaluation of public schools carried out in Portugal since 2005, under the pressure for external evaluation policies coming from the European Union (EU) new mode of governance.
by AFONSO Natercio,
COSTA Estela

Our first findings show the principal differences between scientific knowledge production and its political usage. We see a reciprocal discontent between the scientific advisors or experts and the advised politicians: both of them blame the other side with not having enough knowledge to make scientific advising more effective.
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

The dissemination of knowledge can take different forms: launching institutions (the SEMC, the Special Education Methodological Centres) designed for diffusing knowledge and good practices, or fighting bad practices and promoting good practices at the same time (quality assurance through "equality experts" in charge of the LPEEOP); extending state-initiated training programs (targeting both special educators and "regular teachers"), introducing new tests and protocols, as well as new...
by EROSS Gábor,
FERNEZELYI Bori

The boundaries between the representation of the social world – the knowledge about the world – and the “reality” of the social world are blurring within constructivistic approaches. This changes the focus on the production of scientific knowledge.
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

In this way, the boundaries of the knowledge mobilized by one party constitute the potential horizon of knowledge mobilized by the opposing one. In this case, the unwillingness or ignorance of the majority party to adopt scientific recommendations of integration experts, to secure financing and appropriate equipment (i.e. economic aspects) for the schools and to acknowledge statistical data depicting a severe selectiveness of the Bavarian school system defines exactly the knowledge areas...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

The KnowandPol research applies a multi-level approach and pays particular attention to cross-national policy interactions, borrowing processes and the impact of supra-national actors on national policies. This paper discusses the diffusion and impact of supra-national knowledge flows on national policy-making, the forms of transmission of internationally produced knowledge and the patterns of national...
by NEUMANN Eszter

The article (published in a Hungarian education research journal) analyses how scientific paradigms and the strategy of scientific legitimacy became important to policy-making in Hungary through the examination of a “critical episode”: the work of the Education and Children’s Chances Roundtable in 2007-2008.
by NEUMANN Eszter

These two kinds of knowledge are evidently crucial for the chances of implementation of a potential law. By legal knowledge, we mean, on the hand, knowledge about the existing law and its practical consequences and, on the other hand, a basic understanding for the systematics of law, i.e. the eradiating influence of one law on other connected laws or regulations and legal entitlements generated hereby.
“[..] You say the phrase `within the limits of their possibilities´ should be deleted...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

This practice of negotiating the internal political will first, and then searching for knowledge supporting this point of view of the party, is not limited to the party of CSU, but has also been shown by the two other parties in the Bavarian Parliament at that time. For example, during a hearing with scientific and other experts, one representative of the Green Party reacted to the recommendation of one expert with the statement: "We will consider your suggestions, discuss them and if they...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

Our analyses have found a new kind of actor: one capable of “translating” between the fields of science and politics. This actor can be an individual or a specialized institution
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

To define, which children are healthy and which are not, who has "regular" and who has "special" needs in Education is traditionally a question of medical and psychological matter. For long times it seemed that these questions can be answered objectively through standardised testing and other examination methods. This seemingly objective knowledge of natural sciences has to be translated in social contents: policy has to regulate the Education of the selected children. The answer in the...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

So, concludingly, the functional knowledge on the part of the CSU in the decision-making process seems to have been mainly personal knowledge about the feasibility and acceptability of political decisions gleaned in personal hearings with local actors, visits of schools etc., and institutional/legal knowledge about the present structures of the education sector and the social fields potentially affected by the amendment, including the possible feedback into the political process in the form...
by MAYR Katharina,
NASSEHI Armin,
VON DER HAGEN Alma

Hungary is one of the European countries whose education system has repeatedly been diagnosed as showing below average performance with above-average variance between schools, when compared with other countries participating in the OECD’s PISA survey. This article explores how this diagnosis was received by domestic actors and discusses the main characteristics and arguments of the national public debates invoked by PISA. The national PISA discourse is analyzed by looking at how the problem...
by BERENYI Eszter,
NEUMANN Eszter

Integrative reports are synthesis of the case studies undertaken in the three orientations. In addition to the integrative reports written by the KNOWandPOL teams, you will find some synthesis made by external experts.

The changing role of knowledge in policy is the key issue of our research project.
All KNOWandPOL publications are available here. Short summaries and extracts accessible via topics and key words will help you explore our works.
KNOWandPOL is funded by the European Union.
by platanas

The changing role of knowledge in policy is the key issue of our research project.
All KNOWandPOL publications are available here. Short summaries and extracts accessible via topics and key words will help you explore our works.
KNOWandPOL is funded by the European Union.